This cake looked incredibly tempting and the thought of adding fresh orange juice and zest was just refreshing and I felt like eating a refreshing cake at the time.
I did however adjusted this recipe and added some extra twists. I gave it more of a middle eastern touch, with the use of honey, cardamon and pistachio. I love, love, love, pistachios, not only is the green colour so striking and vibrant they just taste amazing! (however the colour wasn’t so vibrant in my photographs :()
These little cakes were such a delight and would be loving in the afternoon sitting outside. They were very moist with a sticky top, nutty bite and zesty taste. I wanted to try to balance the flavours and make sure they wasn’t one flavour that was more prominent over the others. As I was experimenting with flavours I was guessing with measurements. When I first tried the cake I thought the taste of cardamon didn’t come through, same with the taste of honey. But the next day the cakes flavours came out a bit more. In the end of the day I still wanted this to be based as an orange cake with a few extra flavours.
I do feel that next time I should add some honey within the cake and more honey as glaze on top so it seeps through a bit more.
Overall I would make this cake. It’s simple and looks quite striking.
- 1 cup - plain flour
- 1/2 cup - granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp - baking powder
- 1/8 tsp - baking soda
- 1 tsp - ground cardamon
- Pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup - yogurt
- 1/4 cup - oil
- 1 tsp grated - orange zest
- 1 - Juice of one orange
- 1 - egg
- 1 tsp - vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp - orange marmalade
- 1/2 tsp - orange oil (optional)
- 15g - finely chopped pistachios
- 1/2 cup - orange juice
- 2 tbsp - honey
- extra finely chopped pistachios (optional)
- Icing sugar
- 1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Spray and line 12 mini Victoria sponge tin or grease an 6" round tin.
- 2. In a medium bowl sift flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cardamon in a large mixing bowl.
- 3. In a stand mixer or bowl whisk together yogurt, olive oil, egg, juice, orange zest, marmalade, orange oil and vanilla extract until combined.
- 4. Add sugar and whisk again until fully combined.
- 5. In small batches add the floor mix into liquid mix and fold finally adding the chopped pistachios. Make sure no flour streaks remain, don't over mix!
- 6. Once the batter is nicely combines pour it into the prepared baking tin and bake in the preheated oven for about 13 minutes for mini cakes or 25 - 30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
- 7. Whilst the cake is cooking, in a small saucepan, add the honey and orange juice and simmer for 5 minutes. Check if the cakes are done by using a cake tester and if it come out clean it will be done. Once they are, straight away poke tiny holes using the cake tester and then pouring the orange juice mix over each cake. Leave to cool.
- 8. Once completely cooled, finish it off by dusting with icing sugar and sprinkle with extra pistachios.
